{"id":330243,"date":"2017-10-13T15:05:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T14:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=330243"},"modified":"2017-10-13T16:15:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T15:15:23","slug":"studies-show-republicans-dont-understand-produces-wealth-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/studies-show-republicans-dont-understand-produces-wealth-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Studies Show Republicans Don’t Understand What Produces Wealth in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A Pew poll published on May 2nd was headlined “Why people are rich and poor: Republicans and Democrats have very different views\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and it reported that, \u201cMost Republicans link a person\u2019s financial standing to their own hard work \u2013 or the lack of it. Most Democrats say that whether someone is rich or poor is more attributable to circumstances beyond their control.\u201d The partisan difference on this issue was stark: \u201cBy about three-to-one (66% to 21%), Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say hard work, rather than a person\u2019s advantages, has more to do with why someone is rich. By nearly as wide a margin, Democrats and Democratic leaners say the opposite: 60% say a person is rich because they had more advantages than others, while just 29% say it is because they have worked harder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I decided to look at the data regarding this question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pew itself had published evidence about this matter, on 7 August 2008, under the title “Upward Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the United States\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and noted in their summary, that:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Men experience sharply higher rates of upward economic mobility than women.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Blacks experience dramatically less upward economic mobility than whites.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Rates of upward economic mobility are highest for white men, followed by white women, black men and, finally, black women.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, the report said, \u201cwomen born to parents in the fourth and top quintiles [richest 40%] are more than twice as likely as men to fall to the bottom quintile [poorest 20%].\u201d In other words: upper-income girls in America are \u201cmore than twice as likely as\u201d upper-income boys are, to become poor adults. <\/span><\/p>\n

And: \u201cOnly 21 percent of [Blacks] who start in the top income quintile remain there as adults.\u201d By contrast, for Whites, the latter figure is not \u201c21 percent,\u201d but instead \u201c39 percent of the children in [White] families in the top income quintile remain in the top quintile\u201d as adults. That\u2019s almost twice the percentage (39% as compared to 21%) who stay<\/i> rich as adults. Thus, rich-born Blacks have a much more precarious<\/i> financial future (almost twice as precarious), than do rich-born Whites, and a generally similar situation pertains also for girls as compared to boys: the girls have a much more precarious financial situation than do the boys.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, whether a person is or isn\u2019t a male, or a White, are obviously \u201ccircumstances beyond their control.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The linked 48-page report there, also titled \u201cUpward Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the United States\u201d<\/span><\/a>, was written by Pew’s Dr. Bhashkar Mazumder, who is one of the top experts concerning U.S. economic mobility, and he notes that this study is the first ever to include a crucial set of data that\u2019s called the \u201cNational Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY),” which had been neglected by most previous studies “despite having several attractive features,\u201d which Mazumder then listed. So, his was the most comprehensive study until at least 2008.<\/span><\/p>\n

The results, from combining the NLSY data with other data, are:<\/span><\/p>\n

Consistent with the previous findings of the Economic Mobility Project, the NLSY shows strong \u201cstickiness\u201d in both the bottom and top quintiles of the income distribution. A sizeable number of children who grew up in the bottom fifth remained there as adults, and the same was true of those who grew up in the top fifth. Overall, fewer than 40 percent of individuals who start in the bottom half of the income distribution move to the top half of the distribution as adults.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That last statement is quite striking. If, instead, that finding had been \u201cOverall, 50 percent of individuals who start in the bottom half of the income distribution move to the top half of the distribution as adults,\u201d it would be meaning: half of the individuals who start in the botton half, rise from the bottom half into the top half as adults. And, yet, even that<\/i> doesn\u2019t seem to be anything like the American dream (of being \u2018the equal-opportunity society\u2019), though it\u2019s better than the reality. The actual finding was that \u201cfewer than 40 percent of individuals who start in the bottom half\u201d rise. On page 18 of the pdf is given the racial breakdown of this particular finding: \u201cWhile 46 percent of whites who are born to parents below the median will surpass the median [the average], the comparable figure for blacks is only 22 percent.\u201d So: even for Whites<\/i>, the overall U.S. is a somewhat classist society; but, for Blacks, U.S. class-rigidity is outright depressing. And, both girls and Blacks face especailly precarious financial lifetime prospects, as compared to boys and to Whites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, equal opportunity is a myth in the United States. This doesn\u2019t come from me \u2014 it comes from the data. Republicans are up against the data, when they deny<\/i> that \u201cwhether someone is rich or poor is more attributable to circumstances beyond their control\u201d than it is to \u201ctheir own hard work.\u201d In fact, the data make obvious that the reality is the opposite<\/i> of what Republicans are assuming \u2014 the data show that in order for an American child to have a rich adulthood, that child is going to have to work much harder if it\u2019s a Black or a girl, than if it\u2019s a White or a boy<\/i>. This is America\u2019s reality, stripping away the very-predominantly-Republican (but more generally the conservative) myth. The reasons why this is the case, aren\u2019t necessarily entirely<\/i> discrimination against Blacks and against girls; but, to explain such findings without acknowledging the fact that discrimination (prejudices, bigotries) constitutes a severe economic-and-justice problem in this country, and without acknowledging that this problem would need to be eliminated in order for the U.S. to become anything like<\/i> what Republicans think America is (i.e., an equal-opportunity society), would be extremely unreasonable, under the existing circumstances, as shown in the data.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, reader Will Dippel was kind enough to point out, in a comment to the present article\u2019s posting at Washingtonsblog, that an August 2016 study, \u201cThe Ever-Growing Gap\u201d<\/span><\/a>, has found that during 1983-2013, wealth increased 85% among Whites, 69% among Latinos, and 27% among Blacks<\/span><\/a>; so, the unequal-opportunity problem in America is rapidly getting even worse than it already is. The trend, in other words, is atrocious; and, so, Republicans\u2019 downplaying of this problem is extremely destructive, in addition to being extremely unreasonable. <\/span><\/p>\n

A 23 August 2017 Quinnipiac poll<\/span><\/a> asked Americans \u201cHow serious a problem do you think that prejudice against minority groups is in the United States today; a very serious problem, a somewhat serious problem, a not so serious problem, or not a problem at all?\u201d 76% of Democrats said \u201cVery serious.\u201d 21% of Republicans did. 26% of Republicans said \u201cNot so serious.\u201d 11% of them even said \u201cNot at all\u201d serious. (Those same respective figures amongst Democrats were only 4% and 1%.) Republicans are thus starkly oblivious to the glaring inequality-of-opportunity problems in the United States; and, so, Republicans\u2019 economic-and-justice proposals ignore an enormous part of American reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 10 June 2014, Carter C. Price, at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, headlined “Patterns of economic mobility in the United States\u201d<\/span><\/a>. It\u2019s a really terrific report (48 pages long in its linked pdf version), which summarizes lots of previous studies related to this question. For example, the opening of this report shows that the physical location where a given person lives within the U.S. is a crucial determinant of that individual\u2019s likelihood of being able to draw a higher annual income than that person\u2019s parents did. Some parts in the U.S. have remarkably low class-rigidity, whereas other U.S. regions have stunningly high class-rigidity, more like a caste system than like any sort of equality-of-opportunity or democracy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not only is the U.S. a nation of extremes, but it\u2019s a nation where some areas are, regarding class-rigidity, close to embodying the Republican view of the entire nation (i.e., exhibit remarkably low class-rigidity), and other parts of the country are extremely not (i.e., they have exceptionally high class-rigidity). This disparity is made shockingly clear in the map of the U.S. shown on Price\u2019s page 8 (and also \u2014 and more clearly \u2014 here<\/span><\/a>). The biggest \u201cextremely not\u201d region (i.e., with very high class-rigidity) extends (and here is a U.S. map showing the outlines of each state<\/span><\/a>) all the way from Michigan, down to Florida, and this area is also very wide, extending from Louisiana in its southwest, to Virginia in its northeast, thus encompassing both the rustbucket states plus almost all of Old Dixie. But the largest \u201cvery yes\u201d (i.e., with highly equal-opportunity) region, where the traditional American dream of intergenerational mobility is almost a reality, extends from the Dakotas and Minnesota, down through Nebraska and Iowa, to Kansas. Remarkably, both of those two large extreme regions, the \u201cextremely not\u201d and the \u201cvery yes,\u201d are overall heavily Republican. Whereas in the \u201cvery yes\u201d region, Republicans might be overwhelmingly endorsing the view that America is an equal-opportunity society on account of what they are seeing within their own states (which is remarkable equality of oportunity), there is simply a mystery as to why Republicans in the \u201cextremely not\u201d states (Old Dixie) are likewise<\/i> overwhelmingly endorsing the view that America is an equal-opportunity society \u2014 because those<\/i> Republicans live in areas that are anything-but<\/i> equal-opportunity regions. (A hypothesis on this matter might be that Old Dixie happens also to be known as the Bible Belt<\/span><\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s famous for the residents\u2019 extraordinarily high amount of faith; and this means that believing counter-factual things is especially easy for these individuals; empirical evidence is ignored if it conficts with any item of faith; indeed, in their high-faith culture, faith is highly honored<\/i> by them; and this could explain why Republicans in Old Dixie think that they live in an equal-opportunity society.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore (p. 19 of the document), Price\u2019s study summarizes “the work of University of Ottawa economist Miles Corak, who produced estimates for the intergenerational earnings elasticity for several countries.\u201d Price\u2019s report goes on:<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Corak\u2019s data, the United States has an intergenerational earnings elasticity of 0.47, indicating that nearly half of future earnings differences among children are associated with differences in parental earnings. This means that according to this measure the United States has much lower economic mobility than many developed economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and lower also than Pakistan. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Using data from the World Bank on the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, Corak found a strong inverse relationship between inequality and mobility<\/i> [i.e., high mobility went with high equality]. Princeton economist and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger used the term the \u201cGreat Gatsby Curve\u201d to describe this relationship.50 This curve has sparked a great deal of debate, particularly because <\/i>the United States stands out among wealthy nations for its high inequality and low mobility.<\/i><\/b> (See Figure 7.)<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(That boldface<\/b> is added by me, to emphasize this glaring contrast between Republicans\u2019 views of America, versus the data-demonstrated reality of America<\/i>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Corak\u2019s ranking of 22 countries on \u201cIntergenerational earnings elasticity\u201d is shown by Price (also on p. 19), and the U.S. rank there is #15. Numbers 1, 2, and 3, are Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Numbers 20-22 are Brazil, China, and Peru (at the very bottom). Immediately above the U.S. in the rankings is #14, Switzerland; and immediately below the U.S. is #16, Argentina. Virtually all of Western Europe, plus Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, ranked higher than the U.S. <\/span><\/p>\n

Applying a very different methodology, a January 2013 World Bank study, \u201cInequality of Opportunity, Income Inequality and Economic Mobility: Some International Comparisons\u201d<\/span><\/a>, ranked \u201cInequality of economic opportunity index\u201d for 41 countries, and showed the U.S. as being #24 of the 41, with Norway #1, and Guatemala at the very bottom, as #41. The Index itself \u201cranges from 2% in Norway to 34% in Guatemala\u201d and is around 18% for the U.S. So: the U.S. is somewhat midway between Norway and Guatemala. Republicans wouldn\u2019t be able to find this<\/i> America, on their conceptual map of the world. The real America is far from being number-one, in these global rankings<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus: the U.S., as a whole, is not (even if it might have been in the past, at least for male Whites) an equal-opportunity society; it isn\u2019t that even for male Whites \u2014 and definitely not at all, for Blacks, nor for women.<\/span><\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean lazy Americans can become wealthy, but this also does happen to be true, and it\u2019s true even around the world, not just in America: Lazy individuals can be, and sometimes are, extremely wealthy. The children of billionaires can become billionaires simply by inheriting it (or having it gifted) from their parents. That can happen even if the heir doesn\u2019t work a day in his or her life. It can happen almost entirely by good luck. And, in order to become one of the world\u2019s wealthiest individuals, inheritance from wealthy parents is all but essential. For examples of this important fact: <\/span><\/p>\n

Consider the Forbes<\/i> list of the world\u2019s wealthiest individuals in 2010. #1 on the list was Mexico\u2019s Carlos Slim<\/b>. His father Julian was a real estate millionaire in Mexico City, and taught business and investments to all his children. Two sons of Carlos, who were Carlos Slim Domit and Patrick Slim Domit, led America Movil, which was the Western Hemisphere\u2019s largest wireless carrier, and the largest subsidiary of Carlos\u2019s own Grupo Carso conglomerate. A third son, Hector Slim Seade, led Telmex, Mexico\u2019s phone monopoly.\u00a0 <\/span>#2 was America\u2019s Bill Gates<\/b>, the son of William Gates II, cofounder of the giant law firm, Preston Gates & Ellis. #3 was America\u2019s Warren Buffett<\/b>, son of the wealthy stockbroker and congressman, Howard Buffett, who was one of the founders of America\u2019s libertarian movement, and who had an article published in the second year\u2019s edition of the founding magazine of libertarianism, New Individualist Review<\/i>, in 1962, where the other writers included Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Ralph Raico. Howard Buffett was also a founder of the John Birch Society. His son Warren felt politically alienated from him even as a child, but Warren\u2019s focus on investing still was taught to him by his father. #4 was Indian Mukesh Ambani<\/b>, son of the millionaire founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirubhai Ambani, of whose corporation Mukesh was now the Managing Director. #5 was Indian Lakshmi Mittal<\/b>, son of Mohan Lal Mittal, the founder of the steel manufacturing company Nippon Denro Ispat. #6 was American Lawrence Ellison<\/b>, who truly had risen from the middle class, after his adoptive father, Louis, made a fortune in Chicago real estate, and lost it during the Great Depression. #7 was Frenchman Bernard Arnault<\/b>, founder of Ferret-Savinel Corp., renamed Ferinel Corp. The book From Predators to Icons<\/i>, notes (p. 146<\/span><\/a>) that his parents were extremely wealthy. #8 was Brazilian Eike Batista<\/b>, whose father, Eliezer Battista da Silva, headed the Brazilian mining giant, Vale Corp. #9 was Spaniard Amancio Ortega Gaona<\/b>, fashion magnate, who authentically came from a working-class background. #10 was German Karl Albrecht<\/b>, founder of the Aldi supermarket chain, who also came from a working-class background.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, of the world\u2019s ten wealthiest individuals in 2010, 8 were sons of millionaire founders of major corporations and organizations. 1 was middle-class, and 2 were lower-class. And, the two lower-class ones were at the bottom of the top-ten list, and both of them weren\u2019t Americans. Among the top 8, all but 1 (Ellison) were from extremely rich parents.<\/span><\/p>\n

The advantage that being born to wealthy parents produces is enormous: The children of the very rich constitute only a tiny minority of the population, less than 1%, but they included, in 2010, 70% of the world\u2019s ten wealthiest individuals. Eike Batista was typical of the group in proudly saying \u201cAll my businesses started from zero. … I made my own connections.\u201d But even he<\/i> had to admit, after turning $6 million he had made in gold-trading commissions into only $300,000 and then taking the gamble of buying a gold mine with it, \u201cThank God, the mine was idiot-proof. Only an extremely rich mine could have withstood all the mistakes I made. I was lucky.\u201d So, the general formula for becoming extremely wealthy is to have the luck to be born rich, and then to have luck yourself in business (or else in the performance of your portfolio). Just being a \u201cbrilliant\u201d businessperson works for very<\/i> few, and it fails for virtually everyone else who is \u201cbrilliant.\u201d But having wealthy parents who teach you their trade will increase enormously your likelihood of success. The top key to being on the world\u2019s wealthiest list was to be born<\/i> rich. (Many hard-working geniuses are like Mozart, or Turing, or van Gogh \u2014 they die poor<\/i>.) Hereditary wealth was the most important feature (70%) of the top ten members of the global aristocracy, in 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 13 March 2013, Bloomberg News headlined \u201cBrazil\u2019s Richest Family Forging $13 Billion Niobium Dream\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported, \u201cIn 1965, U.S. Navy Admiral Arthur W. Radford persuaded Walther Moreira Salles, a Brazilian banker and former Ambassador to the U.S., to back a venture to produce something called niobium. At the time, there was no market or commercial use for the powdery element \u2013 just studies suggesting that tiny amounts of it could make steel stronger.\u201d Ambassador Salles thus learned crucial information that had been discovered by U.S. Government researchers. \u201cMoreira Salles decided to buy a majority stake in the operation, and the bet paid off. … The Moreira Salles family\u2019s wealth is almost three times that of Eike Batista, who was Brazil\u2019s No. 1 until November.\u201d That good luck came to Ambassador Salles by way of information he had received from his friend, U.S. Navy Admiral Radford, whose profession had enabled him to know the great importance that Niobium would have. Knowing \u2018the right people\u2019 helps enormously. What children are raised with the most of<\/i> that particular advantage, of \u2018the right friends\u2019? The children of the very wealthy, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n

This inherited-wealth basis of the aristocracy has deep implications regarding public policy, and perhaps the most immediate one is estate taxes, which Republicans prefer to call \u201cdeath taxes,\u201d as if more than 1% of estates have any federal estate tax on them at all \u2014 which is not<\/i> true. 99% of estates in the U.S. have no federal estate taxation of them at all. To call the estate tax, as Republicans do (because their heroes who are Republican aristocrats do), a \u2018death tax\u2019, is a lie (at least on the part of those aristocrats, even if not among the Republican mass who crave to become clones of their Party\u2019s aristocrats, and who might thus more properly be called \u201csuckers\u201d than \u201cliars,\u201d though Republican aristocrats are indeed liars on this matter).<\/span><\/p>\n

Taxes, of any sort, are, in the final analysis, ultimately about distributing the burden of financing government. Should laborers pay taxes at a higher<\/i> rate than heirs, as they now do?<\/i> Heirs don\u2019t pay any federal tax at all on their inheritance (unless the estate is among the wealthiest 1% \u2014 and, even then, the rate of taxation usually ends up being far below the rate that\u2019s charged on earned income), but workers pay tax on all of their earnings that they draw from their sweat (not only income above the meager income-tax exempt amount<\/span><\/a> but also in the sales and other taxes they spend even on their using the portion of their wages that\u2019s below the tax-exemption \u2014 which exemption currently is set at around $4,000 that\u2019s untaxed per person). Is this low an estate-tax fair? It\u2019s theft from the earned, and it\u2019s transferring this theft as booty to the unearned. It\u2019s what the propaganda from aristocrats (who own<\/i> the major ‘news’ or propaganda media who pump continually against \u2018the death tax\u2019) has caused millions of American suckers to favor<\/i>, even while it actually robs these people of what they earn. But the conservative mass accept this status-quo because they think that, somehow, they\u2019re going to compete against the aristocrats and win \u2014 and, that when they win, they will benefit from there being no taxation of unearned income their children will receive from them as gifts and as inheritances. Maybe the odds on that happening are about as good as the odds that these people will win the lottery; but, at least the lottery can be a reasonably fair game, and this real life situation certainly is not. And one reason it\u2019s not, is that unearned income is taxed far lower than earned income is. <\/span><\/p>\n

The deceptionists portray estate taxes as being theft from everyone who dies. But it\u2019s not taking, at all, from people who are dying; it\u2019s instead taking from their often-useless heirs<\/i> (at the time when the asset is being transferred to them) and only<\/i> if the deceased was enormously wealthy (was above the level of wealth at which a federal estate tax exists); and this taking is not theft<\/i> at all, because an heir, by definition, hasn\u2019t done a thing to earn<\/i> whatever it is he or she is inheriting \u2014 it\u2019s purely<\/i> a windfall to him or her, which rewards that person\u2019s good luck to have been born rich, and which turns this good luck into good luck squared<\/i>, and at the expense<\/i> of all workers, who have actually earned<\/i> their keeps and paid taxes on all of it. The people who are being robbed by this are everyone who isn\u2019t<\/i> so phenomenally lucky \u2014 and their<\/i> bad luck thus becomes bad luck squared<\/i>, because they\u2019re being saddled with the burden of financing a government that gives to heirs (and provides tax-supported services to them such as training their employees so that they\u2019re literate, and building the highways on which a billionaire\u2019s corporation transports its goods, etc.) without taking anything at all<\/i> from them (unless the estate they inherit happens to have been among the largest 1%, and even then<\/i> the taxation-rate at present in the U.S. is usually lower<\/i> than what an actual laborer<\/i> pays). <\/span><\/p>\n

By rights, all<\/i> inheritances should be taxed at a 100% rate, because it\u2019s all unearned<\/i> money. (Otherwise, it would be pay, which is taxed.) To enforce that requirement, however, would entail draconian penalties against tax-evasion, and against exporting wealth as a means of avoiding that 100% tax on all (gifts and) inheritances that exceed modest amounts. Consequently, those changes would first need to be made. However, certainly, the taxes on estates that are over a million dollars, which are currently subject to estate taxation, should be taxed at far higher rates than they are \u2014 not taxed zero as Republicans and conservative Democrats urge. The only big problem is the current excessively low taxation-rate on the estates of the very wealthy. Estate-taxation of those estates needs to be increased enormously, in order for an equal-opportunity society to be able to exist at all \u2014 for it even to be able to come into existence here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are gifts tax-free, whereas earned<\/i> assets (such as salaries) are not? Earned receipts are taxed, but unearned ones are not. That\u2019s simply vile, but the aristocracy has bamboozled the public to think it\u2019s terrific. No such society is actually<\/i> committed to equality of opportunity. It\u2019s committed instead to the reverse<\/i>. The aristocracy has the public by the throat. To be more accurate, they\u2019ve got it by the mind<\/i>. And they need the so-called \u201cexperts\u201d on morality in order to do this con-job for them. That\u2019s largely the clergy who peddle the morality that promotes aristocracy \u2013 God, after all, has selected God\u2019s People to be<\/i> God\u2019s People \u2013 and the \u2018news’ media do the remainder of this scam, for<\/i> the aristocracy, by peddling the \u2018social blessedness\u2019 of extreme wealth (\u2018philanthropy\u2019 and other means of leaving a decedent\u2019s asset under private control, instead of transferring it to public control \u2014 control by the government, which would help reduce everyone else\u2019s<\/i> taxes). Other than the clergy and the \u2018news\u2019media who peddle this line, the peddlers for the aristocracy on this are the professors who teach the \u2018classics\u2019 that were written by Plato and by other agents of the aristocracy in former times, which (no coincidence) \u2018justify\u2019 (though sometimes on a non<\/i>-religious basis) the existing enormous inequality of wealth. We\u2019re all taught, throughout our lives, this inequality of personal rights, as being, somehow, \u2018democratic\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 5 June 2006, the Republicans\u2019 aristocratic Tax Foundation headlined \u201cPoll Questions on the Estate Tax\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported that 68% of respondents wanted \u201ccompletely eliminating the estate tax \u2013 that is, the tax on property left by people who die.\u201d The question was a lie, because only about 1% of \u201cpeople who die\u201d were wealthy enough for their estates to be taxed at all under then-current federal law. Honest wording would have been \u201ctax on property left by millionaires when they die.\u201d But on 16 December 2010, Paul Waldman headlined in the liberal (or: the Democratic Party\u2019s) American Prospect<\/i>, \u201cThe Oddly Unpopular Estate Tax\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he said that a poll he had done showed that even when the question was honestly phrased, the public support for abolition \u201cwas only lower by about 10 points.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The American public wants the estate tax eliminated and the burden transferred onto workers. But Republicans especially<\/i> do. And, thus, they favor actually the opposite<\/i> of the equal-opportunity society. And, so, the 2 May 2017 Pew poll found that Republicans especially<\/i> believe in the myth that America is<\/i> an equal-opportunity society. Their heads are in a fantasyland. Unfortunately, they vote. But so too do Democrats, and their vision of reality is only marginally more realistic. Clearly, the American public are heavily deceived by the American aristocracy, so as to consent to the existing regime and to want it to become even worse (by either eliminating or else lowering estate and gift taxation).<\/span><\/p>\n

What, then, is the difference<\/i> between the Republican and the Democratic Parties? The level of hypocrisy is even higher amongst the Democratic Party\u2019s billionaires and their agents, than amongst the Republican Party\u2019s billionaires and their agents. In the Democratic Party, the line is: Don\u2019t worry really<\/i> about America\u2019s extreme inequality of wealth, but only<\/i> about America\u2019s inequality of opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Larry Summers, the chief economist for President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama, is an archetypal aristocratic agent in the Democratic Party, and so he represents very well the line of that Party\u2019s billionaires. On 15 June 2012, Bonnie Kouvassi at Huffington Post, bannered \u201cLarry Summers: We Need To Focus On Inequality of Opportunity\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and she presented a video of him teaching at Harvard<\/span><\/a>, saying, \u201cI think we can accept, I think we should accept inequality of results, recognizing that those who earn more are in a better position to contribute more to support society.\u201d<\/b> He attacked those who criticized America\u2019s extreme inequality of wealth, and he praised at length \u201cthose who are in a better position to contribute more to support society.\u201d<\/b> Summers\u2019s aristocrat-enhancing view was that, even in a nation of such extreme wealth-inequality as America, inequality of opportunity can be reduced without also reducing inequality of wealth. It\u2019s not just false, but absurdly false: In a country with such extreme wealth-inequality, inequality of opportunity is largely the result of inequality of wealth. Addressing the former without also addressing the latter is doomed to fail. One side of that whole cannot be attacked without simultaneously attacking the other side of it. As a reader at a blog phrased the matter, on 29 September 2013: \u201cThe privileges of wealth grow exponentially with each generation in no small part because of the greater educational opportunities the children of the rich have \u2013 with less distraction from needing to work their way through school and less debt with which to begin the \u2018rat race\u2019.\u201d If anyone should know about that, it\u2019s the former Harvard president Summers. However, Summers routinely displayed enormous respect for wealthy people, and contempt for the poor. He was quoted in Ron Suskind\u2019s 2011 Confidence Men<\/i> as saying in 2009 (p. 197), \u201cOne of the challenges in our society is that the truth is kind of a disequalizer. … One of the reasons that inequality has probably gone up in our society is that people are being treated closer to the way they\u2019re supposed to be treated.\u201d<\/b> In other words: he holds that the enormous and increasing inequality of wealth in America reflects more than in prior eras the enormous inequality of worth among individual citizens: the super-rich are just super-terrific, and the poor are just super-terrible, in his view. He authentically reflects classical writers such as Quesnay, Smith, and Pareto \u2014 agents of the aristocracy in their own time (and they all despised the poor, just as Summers does). But those same classical writers are also implicit in the Republican aristocracy\u2019s agenda. The big difference between the two Parties, is that, though both are essentially the same (one-party \u2014 aristocratic-party) rule, over the country, the Democratic Party\u2019s aristocracy and their agents (the Democratic wing of the aristocratic party) are far better at hypocrisy. They pretend<\/i> to care about the public\u2019s interest. Whereas the Republican Party\u2019s aristocracy (the Republican wing of the aristocratic party) rely upon \u2018tough talk\u2019 and a \u2018hard-nosed\u2019 approach, the Democratic Party\u2019s (wing) rely instead upon \u2018equality of opportunity,\u2019 but both<\/i> sides of the aristocracy are actually pumping the same basic lie. And, of course, the Democratic Party\u2019s mass of voters haven\u2019t got a clue to that reality. But, neither do the Republican Party\u2019s. The voters, in both, are deceived, by different sides<\/i>, of the same<\/i> con-operation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, it\u2019s obvious that discrimination exists not only<\/i> on the basis of race, and not only<\/i> on the basis of gender (etc.), but also \u2014 and universally \u2014 on the basis of wealth.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, the policy-implications of this, extend far beyond merely such issues as estate-taxation (though that\u2019s absolutely essential in order to address discrimination on the basis of wealth), but also need to countervail the other<\/i> forms of bigotries (not only<\/i> against the poor). For example: the August 12th Charlottesville Virginia racist attacks represent, in an extreme<\/i> form, the far more widespread common bigotry against Blacks. Such blaring and bleeding headline events as this (and their prosecutions<\/span><\/a> or lack of same<\/span><\/a>) are open sores in a cultural disease that extends far wider, and deeper, than just that bleeding skin-surface of events. In an oligarchically controlled country, politics will inevitably focus only upon that skin-surface (especially when it\u2019s bleeding), but the cause of the chancre is far more important.<\/span><\/p>\n

The public are suckered by the agents for the billionaires. This happens even more to Republicans than to Democrats, as is shown in the polling-numbers. Whereas, at the bottom, amongst the masses, there are enormous differences between Republicans and Democrats on some issues; there is, at the top, amongst the billionaires who fund the Party and its organs (such as the Democratic aristocrats\u2019 American Prospect<\/i><\/span><\/a>), very little real difference. But Democratic aristocrats are far more-skilled hypocrites than Republican aristcrats are. It\u2019s like in Britain, where Labour\u2019s Tony Blair was a hypocritical imperialist, but the Conservative Margaret Thatcher had been an overt one (and not nearly as aggressive a one as Blair turned out to be). And, so, the two aristocratic groups, Republican (or conservative) and Democratic (or liberal), sound<\/i> different from one-another; and, that\u2019s the political competiton between America\u2019s two Parties. That\u2019s the level of political debate, in this (and almost every) country. And, it has been proven that America\u2019s aristocracy rule the nation, behind the scenes \u2014 the U.S. is no democracy<\/span><\/a>. Whereas a few countries might possibly be classified reasonably as a \u201cdemocracy,\u201d the U.S. certainly isn\u2019t one of those<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, some Republican politicians even give Democratic politicians competition in the hypocrisy department. For example, the Christian-fundamentalist-pandering Republican Judge Roy Moore, who recently won the U.S. Senate nomination to fill U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions\u2019s vacated Senate seat from Alabama, was revealed on October 10th<\/span><\/a> to have lied and engaged in tax-evasion. Moore, who is famous<\/span><\/a> for posting the Ten Commandments<\/span><\/a> at his court as the Chief \u2018Justice\u2019 of Alabama\u2019s Supreme Court, should have known that one of those Commandments was \u201cThou shalt not steal\u201d (including steal from the government that\u2019s paying his salary), and that another was \u201cThou shalt not bear false witness\u201d (including against his detractors who had earlier tried to publicize Moore\u2019s fakeries). Both<\/i> Parties are con-operations for the aristocracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

America has an actually one-party Government, with two contrasting sales-pitches to it, and those two sales-pitches are the programs of the two nominal<\/i> Parties. One sales-pitch, the pitch that\u2019s directed to Republican voters, depends upon that mass\u2019s conservatism; the other sales-pitch, to Democratic voters, depends upon deceiving that mass of voters, to think this Party to be the opposite<\/i> of conservative \u2014 that the Democratic Party is progressive \u2014 when it\u2019s actually not<\/i>. (The Democratic Party, which was progressive when FDR led it, gradually became merely liberal \u2014 fake \u2018progressive\u2019 \u2014 after he died. It\u2019s now more conservative than it is progressive.)<\/span><\/p>\n

So: Do Democrats understand what produces wealth in America? Polls show that the mass of Democratic voters<\/i> have a far more-realistic idea of this than Republican voters do; and, that\u2019s just a fact. Perhaps it\u2019s also the reason why, in the research for my book They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i>, I found that Democratic Presidencies (and, to a lesser extent, Democratic Congresses) have produced far better economic results for the nation than did Republican ones. Democratic politicians, in order to retain their voting-base, need to hew at least a little to the Party\u2019s economic hypocrisies about its concern for \u201cthe little guy.\u201d This doesn\u2019t fully anchor the Party\u2019s policies to economic reality, but Democratic politicians can\u2019t afford to make a fetish of denying<\/i> economic reality, nearly to the extent that Republican ones can, and do. (The Republican Party, after all, proudly declares itself to be conservative; they don\u2019t even try<\/i> to hide the fact.) And that\u2019s the difference \u2014 it\u2019s a very real difference at the voting-base of each Party, but not at the billionaires\u2019 level, which actually controls things and produces the bipartisan (neoconservative-neoliberal) dictatorship that rules America, behind two screens of deceits: one to manipulate conservatives, and the other to manipulate progressives.<\/span><\/p>\n

On October 7th, the neoconservative-neoliberal (that\u2019s the single ideology of the U.S. aristocracy<\/span><\/a>) New York Times<\/i>, headlined its lead frontpage Sunday print-edition story, \u201cThe \u2018Resistance,\u2019 Raising Big Money, Upends Liberal Politics\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported that Democratic billionaires such as fund-manager George Soros and \u201cthe San Francisco mortgage billionaire Herbert Sandler, the New York real estate heiress Patricia Bauman and the oil heiress Leah Hunt-Hendrix\u201d were \u201cposing an insurgent challenge to some of the left\u2019s most venerable institutions \u2014 and the Democratic Party itself.\u201d That news-story linked to \u201cDocument: Here’s the Democracy Alliance’s ‘Resistance Map\u2019<\/span><\/a>,\u201d and this \u2018Resistance\u2019 turns out to consist of groups which those same billionaires, and other billionaire Democrats, had donated heavily to, and which had supported Hillary Clinton\u2019s Presidential campaigns. It\u2019s now calling itself collectively the \u2018Resistance\u2019, in the Democratic Party; but, what it is the \u2018resistance\u2019 to<\/i>, is not made at all clear. The presumption of the story\u2019s writer, and the newspaper\u2019s editors, seems to be that the Party\u2019s voters won\u2019t be sufficiently intelligent to have suspicions about the honesty, of that \u2018resistance\u2019, and of that news-report about it. This type of presumption, this trust by the public, has always worked for the aristocracy in the past; but, maybe, someday, it no longer will. Perhaps there is a limit to how many times the public can be fooled, before they start to understand the game. <\/span><\/p>\n

During the American Revolution, Americans finally came to understand the game, and overthrew and replaced the British aristocracy. Perhaps some day, Americans will overthrow and replace the American aristocracy. But, as of yet, no way is clear as to how that could be done. If it ever happens, it will be the Second American Revolution. However, one thing is very clear: if it ever happens, no American aristocrats will be donating to it, nor assisting the American people in any other way, to gain freedom. The aristocracy are maybe the top .01%, but they control this country, more than the bottom 99.99% do<\/span><\/a>, and won\u2019t relinquish that control voluntarily. And there is no way that it would be able to happen under the rules that they have established for this country<\/span><\/a>. No more would that be the case, than it was the case regarding the First American Revolution. (That\u2019s why it is called a \u201cRevolution.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

No such \u2018Democracy Alliance\u2019 is going to do such a job. It might do a job, but that wouldn\u2019t be the job which is necessary, not even if they\u2019re promising to do that job. Behind the scenes, they\u2019re already committed to not<\/i> doing the job that needs to be done. But, obviously, some people think that it\u2019s the job that needs to be done, or else the New York Times<\/i> wouldn\u2019t be positioning this puff-piece as the lead story in their Sunday newspaper, in order to promulgate, to the public, the organization\u2019s propaganda-line, that these people intend to do the job that needs to be done. This free publicity for those billionaires\u2019 effort wouldn\u2019t be donated to that organization if the Times<\/i> management didn\u2019t think it would help the cause of the people who control the corporation, which is an important propaganda-vehicle for the Democratic Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, we\u2019re stuck with a highly unequal-opportunity system, which is getting more unequal-opportunity, instead of less; and (mixing metaphors here) the Republican Party are the bulwark for it, while the Democratic Party plays the \u2018good cop\u2019 \u2018resistance\u2019, against that \u2018bad cop\u2019 bulwark, in this kabuki show, which has been set up by the aristocracy, for the \u2018entertainment\u2019 (deception) of the American public. <\/span><\/p>\n

Because hypocrisy is so essential in order for Democratic aristocrats to be able to control their voters, there is, in the Democratic Party, a far larger separation between the aristocracy and its voters, than is the case in the Republican Party. Whereas, in the Republican Party, there is no progressivism, not even in pretense (since conservatism itself is the opposite), there is substantial progressivism within the Democratic Party\u2019s electorate; and \u2014 since none<\/i> of the aristocracy are progressive \u2014 the potential tensions between the electoral base and the money-base are far larger within the Democratic Party, than within the Republican Party. For example: on October 5th, Pew headlined \u201cThe Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, whereas 71% of Democratic Party voters believe that \u201cGovernment should do more to help the needy,\u201d only 24% of Republican Party voters do. Obviously, no billionaire supports that position, because doing so would entail that person\u2019s donating everything to a U.S. Presidential campaign and to Congressional campaigns, backing only candidates who honestly do support that position (placing first the interests of the needy, and last the interests of the greedy), which would constitute the Second American Revolution, if it won control. And, likewise obviously, no such Revolution has, as of yet, occurred, which means that there apparently are no billionaires who even want it to occur.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Counter-Revolution against the American Revolution has succeeded, and it is continuing still further, to succeed even more than it already has. That\u2019s the American reality, today. Neither the Democratic Party, nor the Republican Party, nor any other party that will be funded by the U.S. aristocracy, will admit this fact, no matter how much the data might happen to back it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org A Pew poll published on May 2nd was headlined “Why people are rich and poor: Republicans and Democrats have very different views\u201d, and it reported that, \u201cMost Republicans link a person\u2019s financial standing to their own hard work \u2013 or the lack of it. Most Democrats say that whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":240831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[30,96,29,3604,698,804,691,540,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-330243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"tag-big-brother","9":"tag-cover-up","10":"tag-democrats","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-hillary-clinton","13":"tag-politics-2","14":"tag-polls","15":"tag-republicans","16":"tag-usa-news","17":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}